I Can Take It
by Punny GEM
Summary: An observant man realizes just how to make the team talk. Can they take it?


Title: I Can Take It

Author: Green Eyed Monster

Email: Complete

Category: humor / mild angst

Pairings: None

Spoilers: None

Season: Not specific

Sequel/Series Info: None

Rating: PG

Content Warnings: Minor violence, implied torture

Summary: The team's captors have a unique form of interrogation. Can Jack take it?

Disclaimer: Stargate SG-1, its characters and all related entities are property of Stargate SG-1 Productions (II) Inc., MGM Worldwide Television Productions Inc., Double Secret Productions, Gekko Film Corp and Showtime Networks Inc / The SciFi Channel. No copyright infringement is intended.

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Archive: None. Please ask if you want to use it somewhere

Author's Note:This is thefirst fic I ever wrote. I'd love some feedback. Be honest, "I Can Take It." I think. ;D

I can take it

That's what he told himself as he was hauled off to see the natives who had captured them. Battered already from the fall he had taken during their attempt to reach the gate, and exhausted from the ensuing battle to stay free, he allowed himself to be led, saving his strength for whatever was to come.

The interview was short, since he refused to answer their questions. Their leader, Bemis, ordered his men to show Jack the error of his ways. One promptly grabbed his arm from behind with a fierce grip. Jack hadn't seen it coming, and he gasped involuntarily as the stiff muscle was compressed.

Bemis noticed, and his eyes glinted. He ordered the man stripped to the waist, to see his injury and perhaps use it to further the interrogation. Abused muscles were already stiff, but the matching bruises had not had time to color. Disappointed with the results, Bemis asked the captive why he had reacted so. Jack, of course, did not answer.

Bemis punched him in the arm, hard. Prepared this time, Jack reacted not at all.

At Bemis' nod, a second guard seized Jack's other arm. He gritted his teeth, prepared for whatever they would do. Bemis noted the reaction with interest.

Bemis watched Jack's face carefully as a third guard poked their victim in the chest. No reaction. Punched the same place. Nothing. Moving around behind, a solid pressure in the back caused his eyes to widen as sore muscles were woken. Used to the pattern, he hid his reaction to the following blow. They continued the probing/punching pattern until Bemis was satisfied. The native smirked at his prisoner.

"Now I know how to get you to talk."

"Don't count on it."

Bemis smiled. "Obviously, your kind is sensitive to pressure more than sharp blows. Especially on the arms and back."

Jack was catching on. Nearly laughed

Bemis saw the brief change of expression, followed by a careful stiffening of his face and was sure he had it right. Leering at his helpless captive, he ordered the guards to press, squeeze, and rub the man's body till he was ready to talk.

Jack, hardly daring to believe his luck, played along. "No!" He exclaimed, with what he hoped would pass as a frightened look, "No, don't," he repeated.

"Will you tell me what I wish to know?"

Jack straightened "Never!"

Bemis laughed. "Take him."

"No!" Jack struggled as he was led away and strapped down on his belly. He stayed tense as long as he could as they massaged him, and allowed himself a groan now and then as they squeezed sore muscles.

When they threw him in the cell across from his friends he was limp as a noodle. He sprawled on his back where they left him -- there was no furniture in the room to move to anyway.

His team called out to him and he told them he was ok. They asked what had happened. He said they were trying to make him talk. But he hadn't. Wouldn't. He said it loud and defiantly so the guards could hear. "I can take it," he said. "I hope."

His friends were worried. Was that fear in his voice? He'd rarely shown fear in front of them regardless of the situation.

They took him again the following day with the same result.

The third day they took him and Carter. "Follow my lead," he whispered. Aloud, he said, "You can take it, Carter."

She swallowed. "Yes, sir." She steeled herself to find out what had been going on.

They secured her flat on her belly, as he had been previously. Restrained him where he'd be forced to watch.

"Don't, please don't," he pleaded when Bemis entered the room. Jack pulled on his restraints. "Let us go!"

Carter shivered; her co had usually been cocky in these situations, daring someone to hurt him. Or sometimes angry. Always defiant. Whatever had happened had to be bad, for him to start right out asking for mercy. She hoped she could handle it.

"Will you tell me what I wish to know?"

Jack hesitated. Bit his lip. Looked at Carter. "I can't. I'm sorry, Sam." And he was, too. Sorry that he couldn't explain what was going to happen. Sorry that she had to be afraid till she understood.

She looked back at him. "It's ok, sir. Don't tell them anything." She clenched her teeth as she felt the guards approach from behind. 'I can take it,' she told herself as she felt something on her back. Hands. Rubbing, kneading her flesh. She tensed, waiting for the pain. The massage continued. Confused, she looked at her Co who pressed his lips together and looked away.

In a moment, he found his voice. "Hang on, Carter. You can take it," he encouraged.

Flabbergasted, she dropped her face straight down on the table with disbelief. This was _it_? The massage intensified as they thought they were breaking her resolve. She hardly noticed as her mind raced, putting together the pieces. Somehow the colonel had convinced the natives that this was torture to them. He was either a genius or the luckiest guy in the galaxy. She snorted, holding back a laugh.

"Fight it, Carter," he urged. "Hang on." Another guard came up behind him, began massaging his shoulders vigorously. He gasped then obligingly fell silent.

Sam glanced up at the sound; saw that he, too, was being massaged. Her shoulders shook as she suppressed a snicker, causing the guards to redouble their efforts. She closed her eyes, resigned to her fate. They pulled enough moans from her to keep at it, but did not get any useful information.

By the end of the session, Carter was so limp from the long massage that she could barely sit up. Jack propped her up against the wall in their cell. "Is that what they did to you, sir?"

He nodded, not meeting her eyes for fear of laughing out loud. When he glanced at her finally, they both lost it. She covered her mouth with her hand to silence herself and he choked on his own laugh through compressed lips. Unable to hold in the laughter, he pulled her to him, and they buried their heads in each other's shoulders to smother the sounds.

Daniel, not understanding, was horrified as he saw Sam and Jack literally crying on one another's shoulders. They clung to each other desperately, faces hidden, shoulders shaking. He looked away, unable to watch the broken warriors sobbing in the next cell. Teal'c put a hand on his arm to steady him and both stared at the floor in silence, trying to give their teammates what little privacy they could.

The guards saw, too, and were pleased to report to their master that the captives had broken at last. They went to retrieve the pair; eager to finally get the information they wanted.

Sam and Jack were finally getting control of themselves, subsiding into the odd snicker, when the guards returned. They looked up, and Sam wiped tears of laughter from her eyes. Daniel, Teal'c, and the guards saw only the tears and couldn't know the cause.

Daniel leapt to his feet. "Take me!" he demanded. The guards ignored him, knowing that the others were ready to talk. "Take me! I'll talk," he offered, desperate to save his friends from a return to whatever hell they'd been through.

Jack was horrified. Daniel would do it; he'd talk to save them. There was only one thing to do. "No!" he shrieked, scrabbling back on the floor. "Not me! Take him! Take him!"

The guards grinned and entered Jack's cell. He scooted backwards until he hit the wall. He crouched in seeming fear, hands raised in front of his face. "No!" he wailed.

They advanced on him, putting themselves between him and Carter.

"Carter!" Jack yelled, launching himself from the floor at the nearest guard. "We can take 'em!"

She tackled the other from behind.

The combined shouts and curses of the four combatants and two observers was enough of a din to be heard by the guards at the outside entrance of the building. Two of them went inside to check it out. The rescue team watching from the woods saw them go and decided to use the advantage instead of waiting till nightfall as originally planned. They quickly dispatched the remaining pair of guards and entered the building, putting a similarly speedy end to the conflict inside.

They put the guards in one cell and let Teal'c and Daniel out of the other. There wasn't much time to talk as the two teams raced back to the gate barely ahead of more of the natives.

Their physicals were brief, all of them passing with flying colors. Doctor Frasier's only concern was a reticence in Dr Jackson. The whole team was back, in one piece for a change, but the man was uncharacteristically quiet. SG-2 were exuberant about the quick rescue, Teal'c was his quiet and dignified self, Carter and O'Neill kept laughing for no obvious reason. But Daniel seemed upset about something. She asked him if there was anything she should know, anything he wanted to talk about, but he said no. The only thing he asked was whether Jack and Sam were all right.

The debriefing came soon after, since the physicals were so easy. Daniel sat next to Sam. Put his hand on her arm and asked quietly if she were ok.

"Limp as a noodle, maybe, but feelin' fine, eh, Carter?" Jack joked punching her lightly in the shoulder. She smiled widely at him and he added with an impish grin, "I knew you could take it!"

"I learned from the master," she said, saluting him. "You are amazing, sir!"

"Not amazing enough to get yourself out of there," the co of the rescue team noted dryly.

"Who said we wanted out?" Jack retorted. Everyone but Carter looked dumbfounded at that remark.

"Care to explain that, colonel?" Hammond said from the doorway as he made his way to his seat.

"Just a joke, sir. We'd have broken out eventually. After we'd been tortured enough." Carter burst out laughing at that.

"Major? Do you have something more descriptive to add?" the general asked sharply. He didn't force a lot of formality on his people, but his debriefings were not typically comedy acts either.

She straightened, took a deep breath to calm herself. Carefully avoided looking at her co. "We were captured, sir. They took the colonel for questioning. He somehow convinced them that... that..." she suppressed a snicker, took another deep breath. "The colonel persuaded them that we hated... " another deep breath, she couldn't seem to get it out with a straight face. "That the best torture was massage, sir."

"Massage?" he -- and everyone else -- looked at her and the colonel in disbelief.

Jack straightened. "Anything to protect my team, sir!" he said smartly. Hammond gave him a dirty look. Jack shrugged. "They were gearing up to try to beat some information out of us, so I just... pretended to be afraid of being massaged. Held out for almost two days before they went after Carter," he said proudly.

"It's true, sir," she confirmed. "They restrained me and massaged me. For hours. Made the colonel watch."

"But when you came back..." Daniel started. His eyes widened with realization. "You were laughing!" It was half delight, half accusation for the stress they'd put him through.

"Unreal," the other SG leader muttered with mock disgust.

"You seem a little tense," Jack commented. "I know where you can get a great massage…"


End file.
